Page 23 of A Murder in Trinity Lane (Rosalynd and Steele Mysteries #2)

“There’s more,” she added. “Lady Rosalynd is watching from the alley next to the public house—behind an empty costermonger’s stall with a blue-striped awning.”

I paused, only a beat. “Thank you. I’ll find her.”

Her voice trembled. “I pray that you do. Saffron Hill's where the city hides its darkest souls—thieves, murderers, men with no conscience at all.”

Rushing out into the fog again, I climbed into the waiting cab, my heart pounding hard against the clock.

The mist thickened the closer we got to Saffron Hill, curling low around the gutters and swallowing the sound of hoofbeats. I knew this stretch of Clerkenwell too well. I’d come here before— chasing shadows, chasing Phillip. Nothing good ever came out of these streets.

The cab jolted to a halt just shy of the Boar and Fiddle.

I stepped out, scanning the sagging rooftops, the crumbling brickwork, the alley mouths gaping like open traps.

The stench of rotting food, coal smoke, and something sharper—metallic, maybe blood—hung thick in the air.

Every shadow could be a threat. I watched for movement: figures lingering too long near broken carts, men with their faces half-hidden beneath low-brimmed caps, eyes flicking sideways. Predators waiting.

Then I saw it—the blue-striped awning drooping over a battered costermonger’s stall. Just behind it, half-obscured by crates, stood a figure in gray. A hooded cape concealed her hair, but copper glinted in the lamplight.

Rosalynd.

She didn’t hear me. Didn’t see me. Her attention was all on the sagging building next to the tannery.

I crossed the street, boots nearly silent on the damp stones, every nerve taut. At the mouth of the alley, I stopped.

She was utterly still. So focused, she hadn’t noticed I was behind her. What if I had been someone with evil intent?

I gritted my teeth. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She spun around, eyes wide. “You—what are you doing here?”

“What am I—?” My voice was low, sharp. “I’m not the one skulking in a back alley in a dangerous part of London, with no one knowing where you’ve gone.”

“I wasn’t skulking,” she shot back. “And I did tell someone. I sent the cab back to St. Agnes. Sister Margaret knew where I was.”

“A nun?” I growled. “What could she have done?”

“She would’ve told someone if I didn’t return. She must have told you, since you’re here.”

I stepped closer, the words rising hot in my throat. “I might have found your bloodied cloak behind this filthy pub. Is that what you wanted?”

Her eyes flared. She shoved past me. But I caught her wrist and pulled her back.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” she said, breathless.

“You didn’t have to.”

She tried to wrench away. “You have no right?—”

“I have every bloody right,” I snapped. “Because I’ve been in this alley. I know the kind of men who crawl through here—they beat other men for the sport of it.” I leaned in. “I won’t tell you what they do to women.”

She swallowed. “I—I could have frightened them off.”

“With what? That toy penknife of yours?”

“The pistol you gave me last night.”

“The one with no bullets ? Christ, woman. You’d drive a saint to drink.”

She stared up at me, lips parted, chest rising and falling too fast. “What would you have me do? Sit at home while you chase justice?”

We were too close.

She was too flushed. Too fierce. Too alive.

Before I knew it, I was moving, backing her against the wall. Her cape snagged on a broken crate. The alley stank of rotted onions and spilled ale, but all I could smell was her—soap, starch, rain.

Rosalynd.

“You drive me mad,” I said hoarsely.

“Good,” she challenged.

That’s when I kissed her.

It wasn’t gentle. It couldn’t be. Not with everything churning in my chest—fear, fury, need. Her mouth met mine with equal fire, lips parted, breath catching as I pressed her harder against the alley wall.

Her hands fisted in the lapels of my coat. I felt the tremor in her fingers, the defiance in her kiss. She wasn’t yielding—she was matching me, challenge for challenge, heat for heat.

The crates behind her groaned. Somewhere down the alley, a bottle shattered. Neither of us flinched.

I tilted her head back, deepening the kiss, and she responded with a sound low in her throat—half gasp, half something else entirely. It lit something inside me. Something reckless.

The taste of her—tea and rain and something sharper—was enough to undo me.

I didn’t want to let her go. Not yet. Not ever.

But I had to.

Slowly, I pulled back, both of us breathing hard.

“I swear to God,” I murmured, “if you ever do something like this again?—”

Her eyes flashed. “You’ll kiss me harder?” She gazed at me—eyes blazing, cheeks flushed, defiance burning in every line of her expression.

She couldn’t be more beautiful if she tried.

“We’re leaving.” I took her arm and turned her toward the mouth of the alley.

“But I?—”

“ Now , Rosalynd.” Without another word, I led her back through the fog-drenched street, past the broken stall and the stink of old food, past the crooked sign of the Boar and Fiddle to where the hackney I’d arrived in was still waiting and helped her inside.